With the ongoing development of micro-circuitry and multimedia technology, digital cameras have now entered widespread use. High-end portable electronic devices, such as mobile phones and PDAs (Personal Digital Assistants), are being developed to be increasingly multi-functional. Many of these portable electronic devices are equipped with digital cameras. A key component of the digital cameras is an image sensor, which is a kind of electro-optical device. To facilitate portability, packaging for the image sensor tends to be compact, slim, and light.
FIG. 5 illustrates a typical image sensor package 11 incorporated in a camera module 100. The camera module 100 includes a lens module 12, a transparent cover 18, and the image sensor package 11. The image sensor package 11 includes a base 13 and an image sensor chip 15 adhered onto the base 13 via an adhesive 17. The base 13 includes a substrate 131 and a plurality of frames 132 around the image sensor chip 15. The transparent cover 18 is disposed on the frames 132. The lens module 12 is mounted onto the transparent cover 18. The transparent cover 18 and the base 13 cooperatively form a sealed chip cavity 133. The image sensor chip 15 is received in the sealed chip cavity 133.
However, the chip cavity 133 is prone to having a much larger space than the image sensor chip 15 because of height of the frames 132 and length of the wires 123. Therefore, dimension of the image sensor package 11 cannot be efficiently used. Furthermore, due to the larger chip cavity 133, the photosensitive area 151 may easily become contaminated by dust, particles, moisture and other environmental factors. This would impact on image sensitive quality of the image sensor package 11.
What is needed, therefore, is an image sensor package that has a compact structure and a relatively high image quality.
What is needed, also, is a method for manufacturing the image sensor package.